Marpenoth 29, 1372 DR (1:30 PM) Szith Morcane: House Morcane

"All right!" says Veracity. "Just let me cast a couple of spells."
She utters an arcane phrase and touches Dessa'a glaive, making it seem
brighter and sharper. Dessa examines the weapon and nods in
approval. Veracity then pulls her godstone from its pouch. She
concentrates briefly and her own skin temporarily takes on a gray
sheen. She stows the artifact and looks up. "Let's go!"

In addition to the archway through which the party had entered, this
room has two exits: another archway and a closed door. Through the
other archway is a room, formerly used for storage, judging by the
ransacked cupboards lining the walls. The current residents of the
house have found another use for it, however: three wooden coffins are
set up on trestles in the middle of the room.

The party quickly pries open the coffins and discovers, to nobody's
surprise, that two of them contain the vampires that had been driven
into gas a few minutes earlier. The third coffin is empty.

Igor looks around the room and picks up some sharp pieces of wood from
the shattered cupboards. "These will do," he says, as he hammers the
wooden stakes into the chests of the currently dormant vampires.

"That will keep them from regenerating," says Veracity. "Let's loot
them and then dump the coffins over the edge of the chasm. That'll
neutralize them for good, I'd think."

"But the coffins will just break open at the bottom and release the
vampires," says Igor.

"So what?" says Veracity. "They still need to regenerate back to
health within their coffins. They can't do that if the coffins are
broken into splinters."

"Good enough, I guess," agrees Igor, dubiously.

Each vampire noble guard has a mithril chain shirt, a mithril large
shield, a rapier, a flask, and an empty flask.

"Good," says Veracity. "Now let's dump all three coffins. I'd hate for
us to find another vampire and have him come back to this coffin to
regenerate, only to attack us yet again after he'd recovered."

"Oh, this coffin was surely intended for Dessa," says Kress.

"Perhaps. All the more reason to dispose of it, if so," says Veracity.
Igor, Kress, Veracity, and Dessa make quick work of dumping the three
coffins over the edge of the chasm.

Igor searches the door. "Looks clear," he comments, as he pushes it
open. The party enters the long corridor and approaches the door at
the far end. "How about if I go through first, invisibly, so that I
can fly over the heads of any foes and land behind them?" asks Igor.

"Fine with me," says Veracity, "as long as Kress is up next to me. I
don't want to be the whole front line by myself."

"OK," says Kress, coming up from the rear.

Igor activates his ring and remains visible. "Um ..." says Veracity,
as Igor pushes open the door and steps into the room. "It didn't
work, Igor." Igor looks down at himself and up again. "Oops!"

The room is large, with a set of double doors off to the left and
another door in the far wall. Enormous lurid tapestries depicting
grisly deaths and walking corpses adorn the walls. Near the right
wall stands a massive stone block draped with black silk and adorned
with silver candelabra and bowls, and a silver handled dagger.

In front of the double doors are two hideous creatures, each with the
body of a huge spider and the torso, arms, and head of a drow. Their
eyes glow with feral intensity. Behind the drider vampires stands yet
another drow vampire noble guard. "Another one!" exclaims Kress. "You
were right, Veracity."

The leftmost drider conjures and glimmers a little. Kress charges
through the door, his battle-axe raised and strikes the other drider.
Igor charges and stands next to Kress, swinging his sword at the same
drider, but missing.

"More undead, eh?" comments Brianna. "I have just the song for you."
She starts to sing.

Veracity mutters some arcane words and starts moving more quickly.
Yol moves up to the door and looks in. Hazen moves past her into the
room.

The vampire noble guard quaffs a potion and starts moving more
quickly.

Dessa and Tebryn move into the room.

The shimmering drider strikes twice at Igor, hitting him once. He
flinches back, but is not seriously injured. The drider bites at him,
missing.

Kress strikes the rightmost drider twice, driving it into gaseousness.
Igor strikes the other drider twice, afflicting it similarly.

Veracity charges at the sole remaining vampire. She swings at it
three times with the Sword of Kas and once with her Life
Stealer, but misses every time. "How did that happen?"

Yol brandishes her holy symbol at the vampire. "The priestess of Hel
rebukes you, creature of undeath." The vampire looks at her and
laughs. Yol scowls.

The vampire swipes three times at Veracity, hitting her once. She
shudders, but resists its energy drain.

Dessa moves up behind Veracity and hits the vampire with her glaive.
"Yes!"

Kress moves up and strikes the vampire. Igor moves behind the vampire
and hits. Veracity deals it a mighty blow with the Sword of
Kas and it goes gaseous. The gas seeps out the door and down the
corridor. From the room formerly containing its coffin, the party
hears a gaseous wheeze of anguish. Hazen snickers.

"This room used to be the audience chamber," says Dessa. "They seem to
have turned it into a make-shift temple."

"Well, they don't need this stuff," says Hazen. "Load up all this
silver, Tebryn!"

"Into a long corridor, which turns to the right. On the left were the
quarters of the minor priestesses of the house," answers Dessa. She
scowls. "Including me, at one time. Long ago, before I left. Before
I came back."

Veracity looks at her and nods slowly, her eyebrows raised.

"Ready?" says Igor. He searches the door and pushes it open, exposing
a long corridor, exactly as Dessa had described. Thirty feet down on
the left is a door.

"Let's clean out everything we find on the way to Dorina," says
Veracity. "We don't want any foes to come at us from behind."

Igor searches the door to the left and shoves it open. The party
finds a room with three archways leading out.

The leftmost archway leads into a well-furnished but unoccupied room.
There is a comfortable looking bed, a dresser with a mirror, and a
makeshift altar with an unlit brazier. Underneath the bed is a heavy
trunk.

Hazen searches and opens the trunk. He pulls forth a bag of
miscellaneous coins and a wooden case, containing a set of thirty-two
beautiful gold chess pieces.

"Very nice," says Igor. "That'd be a nice trophy for our house in
Sigil."

The middle archway leads to a similarly furnished room, but this one
is not vacant. Igor spies a drow priestess who might have been the
twin of the cleric who attacked the party in the night. In front of
her stand two quth-marens.

Igor immediately charges in and strikes a heavy blow against the
rightmost quth-maren. Veracity steps up behind him and sends five
missiles of force from her hand into the same creature. Kress moves
past them to stand in front of the other quth-maren.

The priestess incants and a zone of silence falls, centered on Veracity.

Brianna cheers for her team, silently.

The two quth-marens gaze, in turn, at their opponents. Kress cringes
and shrinks back, affected by magical fear. Igor resists the effect
and silently taunts the quth-maren.

Dessa moves up and sees that she can't reach the battle, even with the
extended reach of her pole-arm. She moves back.

Igor strikes his foe twice. Veracity steps up next to him and
delivers another blow to the quth-maren. It falls.

The previously indecisive Hazen sneaks up, attempting to hide, and
ends up unnoticed next to the priestess. When the unaware priestess
starts to conjure a spell, Hazen hits her with his short sword and
disrupts her casting. She wheels to face him, uttering a curse in
Drow.

Brianna notes Hazen's action and continues to cheer, silently.

Kress's opponent hits him. He snaps out of his fear.

Igor steps up to strike the priestess. She falls over, dead, and his
stroke carries through to hit Kress's opponent. He hits the same
quth-maren twice more. It remains standing, but falls immediately
when Veracity steps up and hits it with the Sword of Kas.

Veracity crouches next to the priestess and examines her. "Igor, you
killed her. I was hoping to torture her, too."

Igor shrugs. "I can only help you with plans you tell me about," he
comments.

"I couldn't very well tell you in that zone of silence, could I?"
responds Veracity. She looks back at the dead priestess and continues
her musing. "Huh. She could be the twin of the other one. Well,
maybe she'll cooperate with us in death." She looks up at Tebryn.
"Brother. Load up her body into your portable hole. We'll question
her later." Tebryn complies.

Veracity searches the dead cleric and finds equipment almost identical
to that she'd stripped from the other priestess: dark elven chain
mail, a small shield steel, a dagger, a ring, a wand, a cloak, two
flasks, 4 doses of drow poison, and a small collection of coins.

The room relinquishes no further loot.

The rightmost archway leads to a deserted room, whose furnishings had
been intentionally ruined. Dessa growls. "This one had been mine."

The party goes out into the main hall and proceeds to the end, where
it turns right. the corridor proceeds a short way farther and opens
up to a room. On the left is a door. Opposite the door is a set of
double doors. Dessa points to the portals. "The double doors are the
Matron Mother's quarters. The other leads to the Patron's quarters."

"We believe that Dorina will be in the Matron's rooms. Therefore,
let's guard our rear by clearing out the other room first," says
Veracity.

Igor inspects the door and applies his shoulder to it. The door opens
easily, revealing a large, lavishly furnished room. It is furnished
with fine leather couches and large armoires decorated with gold
filagree. Golden lamps hang from the ceiling and the walls are lined
with majestic tapestries of purple and gold.

The room is also occupied. A fearsome creature with a large purple
puma-like body and two fifteen-foot long tentacles emerging from its
shoulders stands a short distance into the room. Its eyes glow red
with fiendish malice as it stares through the doorway at the party.

"A displacer beast," observes Igor, as he moves in next to the
creature's right shoulder. It takes the opportunity to strike at him,
but is fooled by the displacement effect induced by his cloak. Igor
smiles. "Fair's fair!"

Hazen moves through the door and moves to the right, out of reach of
the creature's tentacles.

Veracity enters the room and positions herself across its back from
Igor, flanking it.

Dessa enters the room and looks in both direction. She frowns. "Huh.
Nobody's checking what's around that corner," she comments, as she
moves to correct the omission.

Tebryn moves up to the door to watch the battle. Brianna enters the
room and moves next to Hazen. She looks towards the beast.

The beast strikes four times at Veracity, hitting only once, but her
stone skin spell absorbs most of the damage dealt by from the
successful blow.

Kress tires of guarding the double doors and enters the room,
approaching the front of the beast, which whips a long tentacle at him
as he approaches.

Igor swings three times at the beast. Twice, the blade simply cuts
through the magically displaced image of the creature, but one blow
hits true, drawing lots of blood. Veracity also strikes three more
times at the creature, and similarly strikes only its image twice.

The beast focuses its attention on Kress who is standing directly in
front of it, and strikes at him three times. Kress's armor and shield
block two strikes, but one hits home.

"Gladly," responds Brianna. She comes up and sings two short tunes,
touching and healing him after each one.

Meanwhile, the others are searching the room. "Nice couches," says
Igor. "Sure would be nice for our Solarium."

"Impractical to bring back, Igor," says Veracity. "Way too big. But,
I imagine we could have couches this fine made for us in Sigil. If
you especially like the design, I am sure Hazen could sketch it for
you."

"Glad to!" agrees Hazen. "These are mighty fine." He pulls
out his sketch book and quickly makes a little drawing. When done, he
stashes his pad and joins the others in looking through the armoires.
These contain at least a dozen drow aristocratic ensembles, all
covered with sinister spider designs. "Not what I'd call current
fashion in the circles I travel in," says Hazen. "But, I'll take this
hat as a souvenir." He selects a suitable item of clothing and hands
it to Tebryn, who is loading the gold lamps into the portable hole.